#Monsanto: The power of one activist: Mother takes on Monsanto, and wins global prize

Hats off to this mother of three who got fed up and took charge. Thirteen years ago, Sofía Gatica’s newborn died of kidney failure after being exposed to pesticides in the womb. After the despair came anger, then a fierce determination to protect the children in her community and beyond.

Today, she’s one of six grassroots leaders from around the world receiving the Goldman Environmental Prize, in recognition of her courageous — and successful — efforts.

We at Pesticide Action Network are deeply honored to host Sofía as she travels to San Francisco for tonight’s ceremony and celebration. And personally, I look forward to meeting a mom with the chutzpa to take on Monsanto to protect her children.
Pesticides drift from GE soy fields

Sofía lives in Ituzaingó Annex, a working-class neighborhood of 6,000 bordering commercial soy farms in the province of Còrdoba in Argentina 


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Argentina is the third largest exporter of soybeans in the world. It is also the third largest producer of genetically engineered (GE) crops worldwide, following closely behind the U.S. and neighboring Brazil. The explosion of GE soy production in Argentina has brought with it dramatic increases in pesticide use, and specifically aerial spraying of Monsanto’s weedkiller, RoundUp. Spraying of the antiquated insecticide endosulfan was also common until this year. Its use is now banned in Argentina as it moves toward a global phaseout under the Stockholm treaty....read more

Read more: http://www.momsrising.org/blog/mother-takes-on-monsanto-wins-global-prize/#ixzz1sEP1aNvJ

#Monsanto,  http://owl.li/ajzb0 via @momsrising

#NASA Global Warming :50 top U.S. astronauts and scientists reject man-made global warming

March 28, 2012


The Honorable Charles Bolden, Jr.
NASA Administrator
NASA Headquarters
Washington, D.C. 20546-0001


Dear Charlie,


We, the undersigned, respectfully request that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites. We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data.

With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled.


The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.


As former NASA employees, we feel that NASA’s advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate drivers is inappropriate. We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases and websites on this subject. At risk is damage to the exemplary reputation of NASA, NASA’s current or former scientists and employees, and even the reputation of science itself.


For additional information regarding the science behind our concern, we recommend that you contact Harrison Schmitt or Walter Cunningham, or others they can recommend to you.


Thank you for considering this request.


Sincerely,


(Attached 50 signatures)

#Monsanto Documentary : Poison And Genes

Uploaded by PadrinoDonLindo on 9 Nov 2008

Monsanto invents, produces and sells genetically modified seeds. As a chemical producer of saccharin and caffeine founded in 1901, Monsanto (and Dow Chemical and Diamond Shamrock) manufactured the higly poisenous herbicide and defoliant Agent Orange for the war in Vietnam which was excessivly used. About 80 000 m³ of Agent Orange was sprayed across South Vietnam. 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to agent orange, resulting in 400,000 deaths and disabilities, and 500,000 children born with birth defects. Agent Orange also increases the risk of various types of cancer and genetic defects. Shortly after the Vietnam War veterans reported various health complications which can be traced to exposure to Agent Orange. No Vietnamese have ever received any kind of compensation.

Monsanto produces Posilac, a hormone to increase milk production of cows. In the US it is used on a third of all dairy cows. In Canada and in Europe it is prohibited because of many side effetcs and deseases.

Monsanto is world leader in the field of bio-engineering and has branches in 46 countries. 90 percent of the cultivated genetically modified organisms, including soybeans, canola, corn and cotton, are Monsanto patents. The practices of this company worldwide under criticism. "They want to control everything and seed make all the food production in the world their property," says a farmer on Monsanto,

Cotton cultivation in India. Monsanto owns nearly all seed companies. The farmers can only buy genetically modified BT cotton seeds, four times as costly. This BT cotton is resistant against some pests, but new, previously unknown diseases accured. Every year farmers have to take large loans to buy seeds and then go bankrupt. They are left broke to starve, every year, hundreds of them commit suicide. The local agricultural scientists speak of a disaster.

This an indirect consequence of what was promoted as boon green genetic engineering, Even the U.S. soyafarmers are afraid of Monsanto: "Monsanto spread fear and terror among the farmers."

Monsanto holds patents on genetically enginerered seeds - a kind of copy protection - which allowed the farmers do not to retain any harvest for the next year. To check the fields of farmers,
Monsanto has a "gene police", Monsanto also offers "terminator seeds", hybrid seeds, which after harvesting cannot be used again again for sowing.

Since 1999, Monasanto has fortified and expanded it's dominant position, with acquisitions for more than 13 billion U.S. dollars for seed companies and significant patents on genetic engineering methods and genes. Everywhere in the world today are transgenic organisms from Monsanto.

This documentary is based on unpublished documents and comments from victims, scientists, representatives of citizens groups, lawyers, politicians and representatives of state, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Director Marie-Monique Robin spent three years on the research. She went to North and South America and in Europe and Asia, and spoke with farmers in India, Mexico and Paraguay, to reconstruct the history of today's most powerful seed producer in the world.

The advertising campaigns showing the image of a clean and environmentally friendly company of "science for life" gets deep cracks.

Can basic food be a target of global trading company? A merciless hunter for monopoly and market leadership striving company?

Category:

Education

#Monsanto Birth Defects :Monsanto ‘Knowingly Poisoned Workers’ Causing Devastating Birth Defects

In a developing news piece just unleashed by a courthouse news wire, Monsanto is being brought to court by dozens of  Argentinean tobacco farmers who say that the biotech giant knowingly poisoned them with herbicides and pesticides and subsequently caused ”devastating birth defects” in their children. The farmers are now suing not only Monsanto on behalf of their children, but many big tobacco giants as well. The birth defects that the farmers say occurred as a result are many, and include cerebral palsy, down syndrome, psychomotor retardation, missing fingers, and blindness.
The farmers come from small family-owned farms in Misiones Province and sell their tobacco to many United States distributors. The family farmers say that major tobacco companies like the Philip Morris company asked them to use Monsanto’s herbicides and pesticides, assuring them that the products were safe. Through asserting that the toxic chemicals were safe, the farmers state in their claim that the tobacco companies ”wrongfully caused the parental and infant plaintiffs to be exposed to those chemicals and substances which they both knew, or should have known, would cause the infant offspring of the parental plaintiffs to be born with devastating birth defects.”...read more

http://naturalsociety.com/monsanto-knowingly-poisoned-workers-devastating-birth-defects/

Swine flu vaccines cause 17-fold increase in narcolepsy, horrified scientists discover

http://www.naturalnews.com/035501_vaccines_narcolepsy_children.html

#Monsanto Threatens to Sue Vermont if Legislators Pass a Bill Requiring GMO Food to Be Labeled

Source: AlterNet

The world’s most hated corporation is at it again, this time in Vermont.

Despite overwhelming public support and support from a clear majority of Vermont’s Agriculture Committee, Vermont legislators are dragging their feet on a proposed GMO labeling bill. Why? Because Monsanto has threatened to sue the state if the bill passes.

The popular legislative bill requiring mandatory labels on genetically engineered food (H-722) is languishing in the Vermont House Agriculture Committee, with only four weeks left until the legislature adjourns for the year. Despite thousands of emails and calls from constituents who overwhelmingly support mandatory labeling, despite the fact that a majority (6 to 5) of Agriculture Committee members support passage of the measure, Vermont legislators are holding up the labeling bill and refusing to take a vote.

Instead, they’re calling for more public hearings on April 12, in the apparent hope that they can run out the clock until the legislative session ends in early May.

Read more:

http://www.alternet.org/story/154855/monsanto_threatens_to_sue_vermont_if_legislators_pass_a_bill_requiring_gmo_food_to_be_labeled?akid=8530.226594.9A43ZT&rd=1&t=21
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101490609

#Poland's #Monsanto Action Lays Thousands Of Dead Bees On Government Steps

March 23, 2012


Food Freedom

On March 15, over 1,500 beekeepers and their allies marched thru the streets of Warsaw, depositing thousands of dead bees on the steps of the Ministry of Agriculture, in protest of genetically modified foods and their requisite pesticides which are killing bees, moths and other agriculturally-beneficial insects around the globe.

Later that day the Minister of Agriculture, Marek Sawicki, announced plans to ban MON810, which has become ineffective at deterring pests in the US.

GM crops and the pesticides used with them have led to a host of problems (itemized here), including the development of new pathogens.  One is associated with spontaneous abortion in cattle and another is responsible for massive methane foaming on manure lagoons which explode, killing thousands of animals in the US since 2001.

The Polish Beekeepers Association organized the protest, joining forces with International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside (ICPPC) and the Coalition for a GMO Free Poland.  Targeting Monsanto’s MON810 GM corn in particular, they also called for a complete ban on all GM crops and harmful pesticides.

In 2008, the Polish Parliament banned GM feed, including both the planting and importing of GM crops. “Despite this progressive step,” reports Food Travels, “the European Commission has refused to accept regional bans on GMOs, keeping Polish farmers, producers, and activists on the offensive.”

Regardless, says the ICPPC, “None of the nine European Union countries that have already prohibited MON 810 did so by asking the permission of the EU.”

Beekeepers dressed in their traditional working uniforms and ran their hive smoke guns as they marched.  Some wore yellow jackets with the misattributed quote of Albert Einstein warning that if bees were to die, humanity would soon suffer the same fate.  Though he did not say it, it’s true.  Most food crops rely on bees for pollination.

Others wore a variety of original costumes, sported signs and banners and carried bee-like objects to draw attention to the plight of these all-important pollinators.  More pictures at Stop GMO Festival.

The ICPPC is asking Polish residents to write Minister of Agriculture Marek Sawicki, demanding that he implement an immediate moratorium on GM crops, without waiting for EU approval:

e-mail: marek.sawicki@minrol.gov.pl

tel.: 0048 226231510; fax: 0048 226231788

The Organic Consumers Assn. collected info about other actions around the planet during the Shut Down Monsanto Days of Action last week, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Italy, Greece, Romania and, of course, the US.


http://www.blacklistednews.com/Poland%27s_Monsanto_action_lays_1000s_of_dead_bees_on_Govt_steps/18603/0/0/0/Y/M.html By Rady Ananda